Our brave Boys have been found and will be repatriated to Australia on Wednesday.

Cpl. Parker and Pte. Gillson were hastily buried by the Viet Cong they were trying to kill, after the battle.

The discovery and repatriation of their remains will close a chapter for family and the platoon corporal, the latter who has literally counted down the days.

A delegation of 20 Australians including Veterans' Affairs Minister Bruce Billson, Australian Land Commander Major-General Mark Kelly, family members and platoon comrades, will fly to Vietnam on Sunday.

The party will receive from Vietnamese authorities the remains of Lance Corporal Parker, of Sydney, and Private Peter Gillson, of Melbourne battalion mates who went missing during the same battle in 1965.

Their remains were found last month.

It will be the first repatriation of Australian servicemen missing in action since the war. A chaplain will conduct a brief ceremony in Hanoi, which will include a rendition of Last Post, a minute's silence and the Lord's Prayer, before the two coffins are brought by a C130 Hercules aircraft to the Richmond air base in NSW on Wednesday.

Both men will have full military funerals, with Lance Corporal Parker to be buried at Woden cemetery at his family's request because it is the closest war cemetery to Sydney where other Vietnam Veterans were laid to rest.

The funeral will be held on Tuesday, June 12 at 2pm.

His widow Wendy Mudford, who lives in New Zealand, has been too emotional to talk about the discovery of his remains in an old Viet Cong weapons pit, a timber plantation, 60km north-east of Ho Chi Minh City.

Lance Corporal Parker, who was 24 years old when he was gunned down while leading an attack on an enemy bunker, had no children.

The family will be represented by the platoon corporal that day, Trevor Hagan, of Queensland, who has counted the days since he left "Tiny" behind.

"November 9, 1965 was the worst day of my life because we had to pull off and leave two soldiers on the battlefield," he said. "It's been 15,148 days since I lost Tiny and I'll stop counting after the funeral because I can say to Wendy, and all the blokes, that I did what I promised, and I brought him home."

Mr Hagan and other members of a group of mostly Vietnam veterans unearthed their fallen mates lying head-to-toe in an enemy bunker after scouring the hillside over four years.

Four other Australian soldiers remain missing in action from the war.

It saddens me that the search for these boys was left up to private individuals. Our Government was nowhere to be seen.

My thanks to the Soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army for the respect they showed these two men by giving them a Battlefield Burial and to the People and Government of Vietnam for looking after our Diggers for all of this time.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow,They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemnAt the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.

Glad to see they are finally getting a proper burial at home!It's too bad the government from either side couldn't properly repatriate the dead after the war.I guess thats another reason they say war is hell.From what happened to so many over they,maybe they got the short path to death instead of torture and inhumane treatment before their demise!May they families rest better now.

in spite of best efforts, sometimes people get left behind. it's always good when we can get them back.

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